


Picture Day Drabbles 2

by GeekishChic



Series: Personal Fanfic Friday Challenge [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Diagnostic Guesses, Fanfic Friday Personal Challenge Change Up, Research, Will add tags as I go, mentions of drug use, so far so good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:09:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekishChic/pseuds/GeekishChic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chapter a picture.<br/>Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dr. John

**Author's Note:**

> Posting a drabble per photo I receive in the name of this challenge until midnight my time (EST)  
> All chapters are stand alone

 

 

 

 

                                                                            

 

"I do," John said, looking up at his mad flatmate from where he sat in his chair. A dancing fire brought the room up to the perfect temperature. Sherlock was pacing, thinking, ranting about how idiotic everyone was and that he was going to take a special holiday where he planned to disappear somewhere in order to smoke himself sick. He stopped short at John's utterance, though.

 

"Do what?" 

 

"My research."

 

"Your... research?"

 

"Who's the idiot now?" John grinned and went back to his medical journal thinking that was about as far as the conversation would go before Sherlock blew him off, only to return anywhere from a few moments to an hour later to extract his answer. One time it lasted an entire day, but eventually, he always came back. Sherlock  _had_  to know. The aforementioned sprawled lanky limbs in his own chair, staring at John petulantly. He had very few other looks, to be honest.

 

"John?"

 

"Yes?"

 

"Your research?" Finally John had mercy and lay the journal in his lap face-down on the page he'd been reading.

 

"You always say you're a sociopath and people should do their research regarding the difference between that and a psychopath. I do." He tapped the cover of his magazine. "You're not a sociopath."

 

"What?" John was enjoying the confusion much more than he felt he should but he couldn't help it. He so rarely one-upped the great Sherlock Holmes.

 

"You're not a sociopath. You affect certain similar behaviours in order to keep people away from you, but you aren't actually one."

 

"I didn't know your medical degree extended into psychology." Sherlock lept to his feet to pace again, but slowly this time.

 

"You have to take a few psychology courses as part of it, for learning how to deal with patients and prescribe medications and the like, but I don't just read these journals and attend conferences just to give you yet another thing to pout about because I'm away."

 

"I don't pout," he pouted, then promptly sucked his full bottom lip in between his teeth. "Well what am I, then? Since you're so knowledgeable."

 

"Don't know." Sherlock had to stare at him again, taking special care not to poke out his bottom lip again as John went right back to reading.

 

"You... don't know?"

 

"Nope. Perhaps a touch of Narcissistic Personality Disorder-" Sherlock scoffed at that, "or some form of Autism."

 

"I..." Sherlock said nothing else as he fled the flat, probably to see a man about his brain.  


	2. Skin Meditation

 

 

                                                         

  

 

Lives get carved into skin they wear. Who one was, who one is, who one has the potential to be is all there in the presence and absence of lines, in full colour. But few have the courage to wear their souls on the outside, show the world what really makes them tick. Those are often the reviled or, at the very least, avoided. People hate seeing the truth about others, though they demand it incessantly. It holds up a mirror to their own inner workings and it was ugly in there. Well, that's what Sherlock thought. It was why he learned how to dig it out of others, drag it out into the light, kicking and screaming and cursing. When it got too calamitous, he stilled his mind with first one needle, then found solace in another quite accidentally. Though the sensation lasted slightly longer than the high, the permanence of ink punched into skin was perfect. It allowed him to either think, or not. It centered him, a form of meditation as custom fitted to him as the suits he sometimes donned. Truth was, quite literally, carved into his belly.

 

He thought he showed John the way but it was John that showed him. Each piece Sherlock was given the privilege of witnessing showed him he wasn't alone. Sherlock knew John got the leaves, crown, and Rod of Aesclepius of the RAMC as a show of solidarity and intoxication. The purity in his eyes as he examined it when it was finished was something Sherlock had never allowed himself to see in another person. John was fiercely proud of his service, continued to serve as soldier and doctor in a civilian uniform. Sherlock wanted to ask, "Isn't this just perfect?" but could see it was. 

 

Suddenly the few poppies Sherlock had gotten as a representation of the needles he needed before discovering this method of Zen weren't enough. They had to also talk about John. His body spoke of science and truth, but the latter was never so loud as when John was touching him. The phoenix was the rebirth Sherlock felt in each kiss, the fiery light conducted by what was sometimes a simple act of affection, sometimes gasoline... and Sherlock was content to burn.

 

He'd told John that the scar that brought them together was Polaris, indicating the location of his heart beneath it. So John began a series of stars the colour of the blue in Sherlock's eyes to keep it company. It became something of a compulsion to count them, laying a kiss on each one as he did. It always led to long,  slow lovemaking. If John wanted something quick, he had to keep his shirt on because Sherlock always took his time with John's scars now. John would break Sherlock's heart by saying that it was an indication of where and how he was broken.

 

Sherlock always answered that it was proof of where and how John was fixed. 


	3. Mirror

 

 

                                                                           

 

 

It was the memory of his brother that was the final thing that nudged Sherlock over the edge of taking the chance of flat sharing with John, which turned out to be the best decision of both of their lives. Sherlock was barely out of boyhood when Gabriel, whilst perpetually living up to his nickname 'Loki' went too far with one of his pranks. No amount of posturing, begging, or called-in favours by Mycroft on his behalf could save him from "Exile". It was only called "exile" because there was no longer a death penalty in the UK, and Loki wasn't important enough for an assassination, despite his spectacular screw up. It didn't mean, however, that he'd survive it long.

 

Sherlock would never forget his face, the look of sheer agony, the many questions about what he was to their family and if it was a genuine blood tie or some sort of secret. Sherlock understood completely the dichotomy of loving and loathing Mycroft, of idolizing and envying him. Gabriel was the perfect combination of Mycroft's charismatic rigidity and Sherlock's wildness. Even as Sherlock logically understood the severity of what Loki's trick had wrought, it would still be a long time before he could even stand to look at Mycroft when all was said and done.

 

He nearly found himself in a cell next to Loki's after breaking into Mycroft's files concerning the subject. Despite all he did to try and get their middle sibling off, it looked like Death By A Royal Mission was inevitable, despite the fact that Loki had nothing but his wit, as there'd be little to no training. 

 

Sherlock got permission to visit him once. Loki had attempted to be his old effervescent self but was failing miserably. He felt betrayed, like a family outsider, confused, and insecure. Sherlock had seen these things in him before because they were qualities present in himself in spades. But he could hardly stand to see the bags under Loki's eyes, the pale skin and black hair inherent to the Holmes family wan and limp. It broke his heart and he vowed to get his brother out of there at all costs. He knew a young man called Sebastian Wilkes who was always in turn slagging him off and offering opportunities at freedom through the use of several kinds of drugs. At first, Sherlock only accepted the drugs as a way to forge some sort of connection with Wilkes, saying he'd take them later and actually just performing experiments on them. But that night, he worked out how much he would need to help his jumbled mind find its course.

 

Just as  he'd found the right track, he was informed through his tedious weekly phone call from home that Gabriel had been sent somewhere on a mission that they couldn't know anything else about. Their parents were used to the secrecy with Mycroft and knew sometimes their other children helped him. They thought it a lovely show of family fortitude. Sherlock hung up on his mother, something in the back of his mind screaming about how much he was going to catch it, but overruled by the overwhelming urgency and fear as he rung Mycroft up for confirmation. 

 

He listened to the eldest, who of course already knew why he was phoning and, without a word on his own end, Sherlock hung up and put himself in hospital, such were his efforts. He did nothing but shoot up and follow clues, not sleeping or eating for days. He woke up to Mycroft hovering, giving him a speech with more emotion than he'd ever seen from the man in his entire life.

 

"We only have each other left," he'd said. "I refuse to let your mind take you from me as well." 

 

Sherlock knew at those words that Loki was dead and it dropped a thick wall between Mycroft and him. As soon as he was sufficiently strengthened, Sherlock ran away, disappearing into the London underbelly, sleeping rough sometimes, trying anything and everything to just turn  _off_. If only for a little while.

 

He stumbled almost drunkenly into the middle of a crime scene and told the man obviously in charge, everything that had occurred. When asked if he was a witness, then blown off for being so very high, he went into a rant about how idiotic they all were and grabbed the key piece of evidence with a rubber glove he always kept on his person as they made brilliant tourniquets. He slipped it to a silver-haired man under the other's command after deducing that he was one good case away from a promotion. He explained to Detective Sergeant Lestrade, who was having troubles with his adulterous wife, what he'd handed him was and where he found it so he could go and do so. The DI in charge was the sort that gave credit where credit was due.

 

A month later, the newly inducted Detective Inspector Lestrade was performing CPR on him during the course of investigating a homicide that took place at the flop house in which Sherlock had found himself that night. 

 

When he was finally coherent again, Sherlock was given a choice, rehab and a chance to help out with Police investigations, or... when he thought of it, it wasn't much of a choice. Gabriel was gone. Mycroft had to have been desperate to employ this simple yet intelligent man to be his handler. He supposed it could be worse. 

 

Sherlock shrugged his compliance.  


End file.
